The untold story of this American woman has created a mess in the medical world. You'll soon see why...
Discover our latest podcast
An abnormally assembled body
Before her death, this American woman decided to bequeath her body to science. A charitable gesture to advance medicine. The medical students from Oregon Health and Science University dissecting the corpse for their course had no idea they were about to make a surprising discovery.
To their surprise, the body showed an extremely rare malformation called 'situs inversus' with levocardia. When one of the students opened the American woman's rib cage to examine the inside, the doctors were amazed. Nielsen, one of the medical students, explained:
Her stomach was on the right. Her liver, which should be on the right, was mostly on the left. Her spleen was on the right side [...] and the rest of her digestive tract was also reversed.
1 in 50 million chance of stumbling upon this case
Rose Marie Bentley is indeed an exception! The medical students' teacher said:
In my opinion, the chances of finding another person like her are about one in fifty million.
The mother of five had a completely normal life and never showed a negative effect due to the malformation of her organs.
Situs inversus with levocardia is a congenital anomaly that designates the inversion, in a mirror-like position, of viscera and organs. The case of this nonagenarian, who lived longer than the average, has allowed doctors to discover more about the science.
